


Death of a Mockingbird

by DK65



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: '', Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:55:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7166459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DK65/pseuds/DK65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa and murder</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These characters belong to GRRM.

She poured the wine out of the jug and into the goblet as she spoke, carefully dropping in the strangler when she saw him absorbed in his papers. "And what should I tell Maester Colemon? He keeps saying Lord Robert should not be given sweetsleep--he wants to call the Elder Brother from the Quiet Isle to take a look at him; he's even mentioned a place called the House of Healing in Braavos. Have you heard of it, Father?"

"I think, my dear, you should ignore what Colemon says--everyone knows the boy is sick and could die any minute. Why should we send to the Quiet Isle or go to Braavos? It is winter now and the seas are rough--do you think he would survive the crossing even if we were to go?"

"But, Father, won't his death make it more difficult for you to hold the Vale as Lord Paramount? Won't Harry want to rule as Lord of the Vale?"

She watched him as he drank the Dornish red, relishing its sourness. "You can go now, my dear Alayne," he said, "Don't worry so much about Sweetrobin and the sweetsleep--if you play your part well with Harry the Heir, we can hold the Vale and get you Winterfell and the North too." She got up to leave just as he swallowed the last of the wine and began to cough and choke.

"Father, shall I get you some water?" she asked, concerned, and opened the solar door to call Luthor Brune. She turned to look at him--he nodded his head at her, his eyes streaming, as he tried to tear open the collar of his tunic. She ran out of the solar, looking around--Luthor was nowhere to be found. She shut the solar door quietly. Mya had done as asked and enticed him away. She slowed down to a walk and paced the corridor slowly. She wondered how long it had taken Joffrey to die--she had hated him, but what she had hated even more was being blamed for a murder she had not committed. And what had enraged her was to have someone who had been kind to her, who had never forced his attentions on her when she knew he found them distasteful (unlike Petyr), proclaimed a kinslayer and a kingslayer.

She walked up to the solar door, opened it and glanced inside--he lay there, his eyes vacant and unseeing, with his blood all over his chin and his chest. She closed the door and walked away--if anyone asked, her father was not to be disturbed for an hour or more, till the feast began. She went up to her room to bathe and dress, even as she composed a letter that Maester Colemon would send, as soon as possible, to the Elder Brother at the Quiet Isle.


	2. Wolf Queen Takes Mockingbird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He marries her...and then he dies a slow, lingering death...  
> These characters belong to GRRM.

This was the happiest day in his life. He’d won—won against all the odds. He’d lost Catelyn to death; he’d almost lost the Eyrie and the Vale, Harrenhal and the Riverlands, and Sansa, to the Blackfish and Lord Bronze Yohn Royce and their plotting. They’d played a pretty tune to lure him to the Riverlands—rescue the Freys from the Brotherhood without Banners; Ser Harrold Harrdying was ready to fall into Alayne Stone’s arms any minute now. He’d gone to the Riverlands, little realizing that the men he thought he had won over were playing him. And then, they had sent an army to the north, an army to aid Stannis in his conquest of the Riverlands and the Westerlands. And he was driven back to the Fingers, back where he came from.

He should have died of despair then, if the Targaryen Queen and her court had not landed at his doorstep. He had concluded an alliance with her immediately—the North, the Riverlands, the Vale and the Westerlands to be her own, for Sansa’s hand in marriage and for himself as Lord of Winterfell. She had agreed, even though she had dragons. She did not want to rule over a land of smoke and ash. Of course, Tyrion Lannister had been with her, but he had flown off on dragon-back, to attack Lysa and Robert and the Vale. He had outwitted Lannister—killing the old lion on the privy made him a kinslayer, and his wife had never permitted him to bed her. The Queen was gracious enough to send the Imp to the Wall, with the dragons—the beasts would be used against the White Walkers and the wights, not the people of Westeros.

Of course, he’d traversed the Vale, the Riverlands, the Westerlands and the North, on horseback, in foul weather—it did not stop snowing for a single moment—to get the stubborn, stiff-necked lords to agree to recognize Daenerys as queen. She had an easier time of it in the south—the young fire-eater, Aegon Targaryen, died of his wounds after defeating Euron Crow’s-Eye, who had been ravaging the southern shores. She was welcomed to King’s Landing, even though the Dornish found it difficult to forgive her for Prince Quentyn’s death. And yes, Sansa did raise a question—of his marriage to her aunt, their wedding and bedding. He’d done well to cultivate the man who was now His High Holiness, who ignored the question raised by an ignorant northern savage and commanded her to obey her queen.

And so he had won. He’d had his wedding in the sept—Winterfell had been rebuilt, he was glad to note—and there was a feast. It was true the food was rustic, although plentiful; he ate a little, but drank deep of the Arbour gold gifted by the queen herself as a sign of her appreciation for his efforts on her behalf. He had to drink to all the lords he’d met on his travels, each of whom toasted him and his lovely bride.

When it was time for the bedding, he could feel his head swimming. He was hauled roughly to his feet by the ladies Alys, Alysanne and Asha—he noticed Tristifer Botley, Theon Greyjoy and Quarl the Maid surround Sansa. He did not recall being stripped of his clothes—he was too drunk to care. He was sober enough, though, to stand on his own two feet in the bedchamber. His wife followed him soon after, clad only in her shift. He walked towards her staggering, until he was overtaken by a sudden weakness and fell, face first, to the floor.

“My lord, are you drunk? Too drunk to perform your husbandly duties?” his young wife chirped, as she turned him over and looked at him, tutting at his broken nose, leaking blood into his mouth. “Oh, what a mess!”

Suddenly, he realised he was as naked as a newborn babe and he was lying on a cold, a really cold, floor. He recalled dimly Sansa’s stories of the warm springs that heated the walls and floors of Winterfell; had the attacks of the Ironmen and Boltons destroyed the pipes? He could feel himself begin to shiver—his body turn to ice. He tried to speak to his wife, to tell her how ill he felt. He saw her face grow cold; he heard her walk away to the bed; he could hear her put on something and then he heard the bolts of the door open.

“Ser Hyle, Ser Luthor... I fear my husband has been taken ill. Please summon the maester.”

He had lost consciousness by the time the maester came—he found himself in bed. But he could hear them whispering, even as his teeth chattered and he shivered, under a heavy pile of blankets and animal pelts.

“How much wine did he drink, my lady?”

“More than a jug or two, for certain, Maester Colemon.”

“Were you able to...?”

“Yes, of course. Ser Hyle poured the wine into the jugs and let it breathe. That was when... How long do you think it will take?”

“It is difficult to say...but make sure he drinks the wine and nothing else. Make sure Ser Hyle decants the wine from the cask into the jug and leaves it in the room. Of course, he has been travelling through terrible weather on Her Grace’s business—no wonder he has fallen sick so suddenly. And he is no longer a young man. He is used to a soft life, a life of ease. Not a soldier or warrior—dear me, no.”

“We should go south, should we not, maester? But it isn’t possible for me to leave the north, not until the White Walkers are defeated. As the only Stark alive, my place is here, in Winterfell.”

“Whatever happens, my lady, Her Grace must believe that the tears were in the wine before she gifted it to Lord Baelish. It will be enough for her to turn against the Tyrells for sure.”

He did not hear what Sansa said in reply....he could feel himself flying, flying out of his shivering, aching body, away from the cold and the winter, back to the warmth of the Riverlands, to Catelyn and Edmure and Lysa, when they were all children...


	3. A Slip Betwixt the Cup and the Lip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Tyrion is sent to attend Petyr Baelish's funeral at Harrenhal...  
> These characters belong to GRRM.

Sansa Stark looked beautiful and most becoming in her heavy black widow’s gown and black Myrish lace veil. Her fire-bright hair, deep blue eyes and fair skin shone through, like beacons in the night. She gently dabbed at her dry eyes with a white kerchief. Tyrion Lannister could not take his eyes off his former wife, and now Petyr Baelish’s widow.

When he had returned to Westeros, with Daenerys Targaryen, accompanied by the largest khalasar of Dothrakis ever seen, an army of Unsullied, three dragons, Sers Barristan and Jorah, as well as Penny and the rest of Daenerys’ court, they had already overrun the city states of Essos, leaving chaos in their wake. He helped Daenerys take Dragonstone, which for some strange reason, was held by the Night’s Watch. The men were polite; they refused to raise arms against her, saying that their brotherhood did not involve itself in the politics of the realm. They told her of the White Walkers; the brothers of the Night’s Watch were on Dragonstone to extract dragonglass, to be fashioned into daggers and sent to the Wall.

While some of the khalasar went south to King’s Landing, the Stormlands, the Reach and Dorne, to get support from those loyal to the Targaryens, Tyrion and Daenerys proceeded to the Vale of Arryn. Tyrion had a bone to pick with Lady Lysa and her son—her false accusation of him for her husband’s murder had led to his father’s invasion of the Riverlands and the War of Five Kings had followed. He was astounded to learn of Lady Lysa’s death; he was less astounded to find Petyr Baelish at the Fingers. It appeared the one-time Master of Coin and Lord Paramount of the Riverlands and the Vale had been cast aside by the Vale lords and the Riverlanders. He did not elaborate on why and how this had happened, but he was eager to help Daenerys regain her throne and she was just as eager to avail herself of his assistance. All the news they got from the south was bad; Aegon Targaryen, whom Daenerys refused to recognize as her nephew, had won over the south because of his spirited defence against Euron Crow’s Eye and his Ironborn. In the North, the Riverlands and the Vale, Petyr claimed, the lords supported Stannis Baratheon, because he had driven out the Ironborn and was defending the people against the White Walkers and the wights. He said Stannis’ supporters would be more likely to bend the knee to Daenerys, because her dragons would help them beat back the White Walkers. All he asked for his help was for Daenerys to arrange his marriage to Sansa Stark and his recognition as Lord of Winterfell.

Although Tyrion vociferously protested against this alliance, his words fell on deaf ears. Daenerys saw the Starks as having contributed to the downfall of her family. She had only tolerated his presence in her court because of his knowledge of dragons. He had also made no secret of his involvement in his father’s death. And Petyr told Daenerys that Sansa’s marriage to Tyrion could be set aside because it had not been consummated. So the agreement was made between the dragon queen and the mockingbird; he would get her the allegiance of the North, the Riverlands and the Vale, for which he would be permitted to wed the heiress to Winterfell, the last of her line. As for Tyrion...he could always go to the Wall, where the dragons would be needed.

By the time he left the Vale, he learned that Aegon Targaryen had died of the wounds he had taken fighting Euron, whom he had killed in battle. The lords of the south were willing to recognize the dragon queen, although the Dornish extended this recognition sourly—they had just learned of Prince Quentyn’s death in Meereen. The Queen had then left for King’s Landing, to take her place on the Iron Throne.

Tyrion was not surprised to learn, a few months later when he arrived at the Wall, that all the lords whom Petyr had set out to charm had been won over. Of course, he’d had to travel all over the Vale, the Riverlands and then the North, in the heaviest of snow storms, to gain their allegiance for the Targaryen queen—but they had given it. Even his relatives and their bannermen in the Westerlands had bent the knee. Stannis had given up all claims to the crown and taken the black; his daughter was being fostered by the Mormonts of Bear Island, Ser Jorah’s family. He was sad to learn that Sansa had eventually agreed to marry Petyr, after raising several questions about the validity of marrying a man who had earlier been her uncle by marriage. Her objections had been brushed aside almost insultingly by His High Holiness; Petyr, it was claimed, was a most devout son of the sept and would do his bit to claim the north for the true religion. The wedding had taken place at Winterfell, at the sept; the queen was kind enough to send the bride and groom several casks of Arbour gold, a wine of which Lord Petyr was particularly fond.

Although he was in the North and could be expected to hear of how his former wife fared in her second attempt at matrimony, he heard little. Lord Jon Snow had not graced the occasion, nor had Lord Stannis, both of them being too taken up with the war against the White Walkers. Lady Brienne, who travelled often between the Wall and Winterfell, and acted as Lady Sansa’s military advisor, would only say that poor Lord Petyr did not keep well at all.

“He is no longer a young man,” she heard him say to his brother Jaime. “He has been suffering from an ague and a fever and the gods know what else. He was unable to even consummate his marriage. Lady Sansa served him a cup of the Arbour gold the queen had sent, which he drank off before they went to their bedding; when she entered their chamber, she found him collapsed on the floor, too weak to get to the bed, let alone... And he has not improved since. She says that it was all that snow and ice that he travelled through, which has made him ill.”

“He’s not that old, wench,” Jaime muttered. “He’s almost two years younger than me, Brienne. If I can take this wretched weather at the Wall...”

“You have been accustomed to a harder life, King...Jaime. I’ve seen him—he has a body as soft and well-cared for as that of a ... well... a maester or a septon. Of course, Lady Sansa is worried about him; she has sent to the Vale and the Riverlands and even to the south for maesters to cure him. No one can tell what is wrong with him. Even Maester Samwell ... all they can say is that he is dying, slowly and painfully, of a long, lingering fever that he is unable to throw off. Lady Sansa is determined to take him to Harrenhal—all she waits for is news of a victory against the White Walkers. Until then, as the Stark in Winterfell, she must remain in the north.”

Tyrion had heard no more of Sansa and her woes; he had no time to listen to news of the rest of Westeros. He, and every man of the Night’s Watch, was soon occupied fighting off the White Walkers and the wights, who attacked the Wall in their strength. The brothers at Eastwatch spoke of things in the water, which they had to fight; there were other groups of Night’s Watch men who were sent to the Westerlands, the Riverlands and the Vale, to fight wights, and then to Dorne, the Reach, the Stormlands and the Crownlands. They said the Ironborn, including the thralls, and the Skagosi, the inhabitants of the Three Sisters, Tarth and other islands, had fled their homes for the mainland. He did not know if this was true or false; he was too busy fighting and surviving the war, too busy managing the dragons.

And then it was over. They had somehow driven back the White Walkers—they might not attack for the next eight hundred years or so. They had taken many losses, Lord Stannis amongst them. Lady Sansa had taken her husband to his estate at Harrenhal, where he had breathed his last. And it was there that she had decided to burn his remains and bury him. Tyrion had been, for some strange reason that Jon Snow refused to discuss with him, sent as the Night’s Watch representative, to express his condolences.

He had been courteously received by the widow, who had listened to him graciously and thanked him for coming so far. There were representatives from the Queen’s Small Council also present there—Lord Mace Tyrell, Maester Gormon and Lord Randyll Tarly. It appeared, from what little the men let fall, that they would question the widow after the funeral—they suspected that she had tried to poison her husband, just as she had once poisoned dear, departed King Joffrey.

Tyrion was determined to be present—Lord Jon, he reasoned, must have suspected that something of the sort would take place. It was true that Lady Sansa was not without protection—Lady Brienne did not leave her side; neither did Ser Brynden Tully, her great-uncle. The lords of the North, the Riverlands and the Vale had sent their representatives, as had the Westerlands—all the men had proved themselves fine warriors.

However, he felt his wits might be needed to defend the woman he had once called wife.  
The morning after the funeral, Lady Sansa was summoned to the great hall by the three men from King’s Landing. She was questioned about the particulars of her marriage to Lord Petyr—they tried to imply, basing their suspicions on her earlier objections to the union, that she had been against the marriage from the beginning.

“All I wanted to know from His High Holiness,” Lady Sansa explained patiently, “was whether it was right in the eyes of the gods and men for me to marry a man who had not only wedded but also bedded my aunt, Lady Lysa Arryn. I was told by the Lord High Septon that it was not my place to ask such questions; the Queen had troubled herself to arrange my marriage and it was my duty to abide by her wishes as a loyal subject, which is what I did, when Lord Petyr gained the support of my lords for the queen.”

They then questioned her about what he had eaten and drunk before the wedding. She claimed he had eaten all that was served at the feast for their wedding. He had taken a strong dislike to the ale the northerners loved; he hated Dornish red, which he considered a wine fit only for men-at-arms and sellswords; he had drunk the Arbour gold with which the Queen had gifted him, as a loyal subject should.

Then they wanted to know all about the wine and its decanting. “Ser Hyle Hunt, who was once a knight of your household, Lord Tarly, was in charge of that,” she said firmly. “He would pour the wine out of the cask and into a jug and serve it to my lord husband. He did so at the wedding. Afterwards... he used to pour the wine out and leave it in our room... my lord refused to drink water or ale or anything else. He would have no drink other than Arbour gold.”

Maester Gormon then questioned her about her knowledge of poisons. It appeared Lady Sansa had no knowledge of the subject—the maester would throw out names and Lady Sansa would give him a puzzled look and ask what it was. She said she had heard of the strangler—Lord Petyr had told her of it and how he had smuggled it into King Joffrey’s wedding feast. She told them all that he had said, looking all the while in an innocent and trusting manner into Lord Mace Tyrell’s eyes. As she concluded her tale, describing how his mother and the late Lord Baelish had conspired to murder King Joffrey, Tyrion could feel his temper rise as he looked at Lord Tyrell’s face, turning redder than a beetroot. No, she had never heard of the tears of Lys—what were they? Widow’s blood—how horrid! And so it went. The lords were unable to prove that she had killed Lord Baelish with poison. They had to return to King’s Landing—it appeared the Queen had been taken ill.

Tyrion was preparing to return to the Wall—he had gone to his room, to gather his things together, before he made his farewells to Lady Sansa. A piece of paper fell out of the pocket of a tunic—“Come to the godswood in the evening,” it said. He stared at it—it was written in a graceful, feminine hand. He decided to go—he wondered what he would learn.

When he arrived at the godswood, he was surprised to see Lady Sansa sitting on a log that lay before the heart tree—she had put off mourning and wore a dress of blue and silver, with a direwolf cloak thrown on top.  
She called him to her side and bade him sit.

“Why do you think they were asking so many questions of me?” she asked him, searching his eyes for an answer.

“They did not believe Lord Petyr would die so suddenly,” Tyrion responded dryly.

“But he went through so much... Do they not know that all of Westeros north of Darry was beset by snowstorms while Lord Petyr travelled from one great hall to another, on horseback, gaining allies for our dear Queen? He almost fell off his horse when he reached Winterfell; he was so tired and his clothes so soaked. And then, the next day was taken up with the wedding and the feast; every lord from the North, the Riverlands and the Vale, the Westerlands, and some of Lord Stannis’ bannermen from the Stormlands and Dragonstone, came for our wedding. Each one of them stood up and toasted us, in beer or ale or Dornish red. My lord had to stand up and reply to each toast, in Arbour gold. When he fell flat on the floor in our wedding chamber, I thought nothing of it; he had drunk too much wine and I twitted him about it and laughed. And then he began to groan and scream—I touched him and found he was burning hot, like a furnace. I had to dress quickly and get help. The poor man never recovered.” She said all this, looking at him dry-eyed.

“This story you told about the strangler, my lady...about taking it to Joffrey’s wedding feast and finding a stone missing afterwards...”

She took out something from under her cloak. It was a hairnet of silver, set with dark stones. He had last seen her wearing it at his nephew’s wedding. He saw the missing space right in the middle of the net.

“Did you have it examined...afterwards?” he asked.

“I did indeed, my lord—after I left the Vale for the Wall.”

“You were at the Vale?”

“Yes—didn’t Petyr tell you? He arranged Joffrey’s murder so that I could escape King’s Landing. He took me to the Vale and disguised me as his bastard daughter. He married my aunt...”

“Of course, you must have loved him well. He rescued you from the lion’s den and from a marriage you hated.”

She looked him straight in the eye and laughed out loud, a gay and joyous laugh. And then she said, “No, I did not love him; I came to loathe him the more I knew of him.”

He stared at her nonplussed. She told him of all that she had learned—of how Petyr had convinced Lysa to murder Lord Jon Arryn with the tears of Lys; of how (she learned this from a certain brother on the Quiet Isle) he had betrayed her own father to his death; of how he had conspired with the Tyrells to murder Joffrey and have her and him accused of the crime; of how he had sent her friend to a brothel and into a marriage to Ramsay Snow.... She described how she had escaped his clutches; how the lords and knights of the Vale had pretended to fall into his trap; how they had helped her and her uncle escape north, when they learned of Baelish’s misdeeds; how they had helped Stannis take the Riverlands and drive Baelish to the Fingers.

“The lords of the Vale and the tribesmen from the Mountains of the Moon would have finished him off, if your dear Queen had not arrived...” she spoke with some bitterness. Of course, Baelish had wanted to regain power and he had known he had a winning hand in an alliance with Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons.

“The lords made certain they took their time to accept his terms—he had to visit each one; feast with them and their children and their bannermen; travel through storms and bad weather to reach the next holdfast, the next hall, the next... He did it, because he was desperate to get me back in his clutches. And I was just as keen to get my revenge. The Queen and the Lord High Septon made it easier for me—she made you repudiate our marriage, for all sorts of reasons, and His High Holiness ignored the questions I raised. And then she gave him the Arbour gold.”

“What does the Arbour gold have to do with anything?” he asked, mystified.

“It has everything to do with it. I could never bring him to trial—the gods alone know what he would say in a court of justice. My poor aunt—she was a very foolish woman to have fallen in love with such a vile man. He used her feelings for him as a weapon against her and her son. He could have besmirched her name, hers and my mother’s. This was the best way. Ser Hyle decanted the wine and left it to breathe; I added a few drops of the tears of Lys. Yes, Maester Pylos, Lord Stannis’s maester, told me about it, as did Mors Umber. He spent some time at the Citadel, you know... he knows his poisons and made sure I had the tears...”

“You... why did you have to do it, my lady? Why not a maester or someone else?”

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “You do know, my lord, that in the north, he who passes a sentence must swing the sword? Well, I wield no sword...but I had passed a sentence and I would see him punished. I thought you deserved to know—twice, he had accused you of murder when you were innocent. You were brave or foolhardy enough to admit to killing your father. Of course, the sept would have demanded your head for that crime... but you know your dragons, so you were sent to the Wall with the beasts. Of course, they were too busy to make you swear your vows—Jon told me of it. And Lady Genna and Lord Bronn—they both told me the reasons why you did what you did. I think you did right—he had hurt you most grievously and deserved to die. You had been kind to me—you could have done as he wanted... you could have demanded your rights as a husband. I owed you for that and I have paid my debt. And I think it was amusing...to have the Queen believe the Redwynes had poisoned the Arbour gold. She isn’t ill, not at all—she is hale and hearty. I made sure she knew what the Tyrells were capable of. And now I think Lord Mace will have to answer some very uncomfortable questions. I don’t see the Queen drinking any wine at all, not for the rest of her life, not while she lives in Westeros.”


End file.
